Rural/Urban Divide? Meh.
January 19, 2009 by Daniel Rose
We had another great AgendaCamp on Sunday, this time in Kingston. Close to 100 people from all over Eastern Ontario braved the snowy roads to spend a day talking about how agriculture fits into Ontario’s changing economy. There were 44 separate and distinct discussions over the course of the day and one theme I noticed was the idea of a “Rural/Urban” divide and thoughts on how to solve it.
This notion of a “divide” didn’t sit quite right with me. Was there really a divide? If so, is it really about rural vs. urban? Some ideas that got tossed around on Twitter during the AgendaCamp included notions of “producer/consumer” and “grower/eater”. Something that bothers me about this is the linear construct that the proposed dichotomy inherently suggests. Things are grown, they magically appear in cities, they’re digested and it’s all over. The fact of the matter is that it’s circular and cyclical. It’s systemic. Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase “Farmers Feed Cities”, highlighting the importance of the relationship between rural dwellers and city dwellers. I saw a build on that phrase that read “Farmers Feed Cities. Cities Feed Farmers.” I thought that was a great way of describing the relationship.
Local food movements, slow food and the 100-mile diet are all gaining in popularity which is a good thing but there is a long way to go. What is a better way to describe the lack of appreciation (the divide) for the food production eco-systems that feed Canadian cities and farm communities? Is there something more accurate or an entirely different construct?
So far we have:
- rural/urban
- producer/consumer
- grower/eater
Thoughts?
In her book the Economy of Cities, Jane Jacobs challenges the assumption that the development of agriculture predates cities. She suggests that in fact the technologies and markets that support agriculture are developed in cities and then move out to agricultural communities. This connects to the “Farmers Feed Cities. Cities Feed Farmers” line.